Freud, Orvieto and Signorelli Freud, Orvieto, Signorelli: the Renaissance frescoes by Luca Signorelli had a profound effect upon Freud. In the entrance hall of Freud’s last home in London, on the right, is a picture of Tivoli, a reminder that Italy was his favourite holiday destination and his spiritual home. 50 years after his death […]
Etruscan city, Freud, Italian hidden treasure, Italy, Italy hidden treasure to photograph, Luca Signorelli, not just photography, Orvieto, photography workshop tour
Mock Gothic Horror: painted by Whistler, photographed by Cameron, the tragic story of Christine Spartali, Contessa Cahen. Near Orvieto on a ridge looking over a deep valley into Southern Tuscany stands a sinister looking castle in the mock-Gothic style of the late nineteenth century. It once belonged to the immensely rich Cahen family, still remembered […]
Italy hidden treasure to photograph, photo trip, photographic set, photography workshop tour, photography-workshop
A photo workshop day trip from Orvieto to the Sibilline Mountains in July. Castelluccio di Norcia is well known the world over amongst photographers for its picturesque vales of wild flowers at all times of the year – except when it is under snow which at 1500m is for most of the winter. It is […]
Castelluccio photo trip, Italy hidden treasure to photograph, photo trip, photography workshop tour
The ancient church occupies a site once sacred to the Etruscans. Lake Bolsena was the centre of their cult. The charm of the place lies in its desolate remoteness in the swamps near Lake Bolsena. Until the 1920s malaria was the scourge of the Italy. Often entire communities were decimated because the origins of the […]
Italy hidden treasure to photograph, lake Bolsena, photographic set, photography-workshop, san lorenzo vecchio, St Cristina bolsena, st John Baptist
Just outside Pitigliano lies the Parco Orsini commonly known locally as Stranglers Park, and thereby hangs a tale………… Orso Orsini was a prince of wild ways. Wayward brother of the cultured condottiero Niccolò, he married the beautiful Eleanora degli Atti di Morlupo, whose name was long but her life short. He strangled her in a […]
Bomarzo, Italy hidden treasure to photograph, Orso Orsini, photographic set, photography-workshop, Pitigliano, secret garden, Tuscany, Vicino Orsini
“Sunrise glowed red as I climbed along the gorge; when I reached the grove, I saw the altar slab all scattered with brightness, like the harper’s robe. I put down my load, and prayed to Apollo.” Poggio Conte will appear immediately familiar to anyone who has read Mary Renault’s The King Must Die, a novel […]
Etruscan cemetery, Italian hidden treasure, Italy hidden treasure to photograph, Poggio Conte, san colomba, Tuscany
One of the interesting lost sites within an hour of Orvieto we made a Camera Etrusca excursion to the hermitage of Ripatonna. Much of what is now known as northern Latium north of Rome on the borders of Tuscany was until the 1930s a veritable wilderness. Saracen pirates had scourged the area and malaria had […]
etruscan, Italian hidden treasure, Italy, Italy hidden treasure to photograph, not just photography, photo trip, photographic set, Ripatonna Cicognina, Tuscany